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UZ Vice Chancellor defies court order
Students Solidarity Trust
July 16, 2007

In a clear case that continues to show that authorities in Harare treat the law with disdain, the University of Zimbabwe Vice-Chancellor, Levy Nyagura has defied a High Court order which had granted students the right to go back to their halls of residence.

"Go and lean at the Judges house" - Nyagura once told Promise Mkwanzanzi, ZINASU President. Nyagura has defied yet another High Court order allowing students to go back into halls of residence

The Vice-Chancellor last week evicted all students from the campus, alleging that the students had involved in an orgy of violence - allegations which students deny.

The SST has recorded a total of 226 students who were left clueless after the heartless eviction in this brutal winter. 42 of the students have disabilities and 17 of them are helpers - they were also evicted. They have however since been readmitted, although they have no access to food. One helper fainted on Friday because of hunger.

It is against this background that on the 10th of July, the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) through the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights filed an urgent application in the High Court, in the case of Trevor Murai and Dominic Shumba vs. Vice Chancellor, and the Director of Accommodation and Catering Services University of Zimbabwe with the Police Commissioner as 3rd respondent, seeking an order that the University authorities readmit evicted students into their halls of residence until the end of the extended semester.

The order was granted before Justice Hlatswhayo, and it was agreed by all parties that students be readmitted into the halls of residence that had not been rendered inhabitable after a demonstration that occurred on 7 July 2007. The students could be re-admitted into Swinton Hall, Carr Saunders, New Complexes 2, 3 and 4.

However, Levy Nyagura in his usual diatribe and thuggish behaviour issued a statement to the effect in the light of renewed but unsubstantiated and unconfirmed threats to life and property that came to light after the order, the University of Zimbabwe was unable to open any of the halls of residence.

Nyagura has developed a proclivity of defying High Court orders. He once told the ZINASU President, Promise Mkwananzi to go and learn at the Judges house after he got an order allowing him to resume his studies after being expelled.

This latest political somersault by Nyagura puts the administration of justice at the institutions of higher learning into turmoil, and portrays him as a bitter administrator just spewing a potent cocktail of venom at students instead of dealing with their challenges and griviences, and gives vent to the assertion that that Zimbabwe is a lawless territory that has no respect for the rule of law as examplified by this.

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